


ashes to ashes

by DesertLily



Series: Whumptober 2020 [30]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Arson, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Happy Ending, Kinda, Minor Character Death, No Age of the Beholding (The Magnus Archives), Property Damage, The Magnus Archives Season 4, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020, burning building, outside pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:01:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27289825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertLily/pseuds/DesertLily
Summary: In the morning there would be a news report about how a gas leak had led to a fire at the Magnus Institute. But for now, they all stood as the building fell to ash and ruin. They all stood as they finally embraced freedom.
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Melanie King (implied), Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist (implied)
Series: Whumptober 2020 [30]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946296
Comments: 3
Kudos: 42
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	ashes to ashes

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone gets a little arson. As a treat. For the 'burning building' prompt for Whumptober. Highkey really happy with how this turned out.

The fire started in the archives. Though, perhaps ‘fire’ was the wrong word. The inferno started down there. Part of one of Gertrude Robinson’s final contingency plans. No matter what happened to those that worked in the institute, more staff would come to replace them. More people would follow under the Beholding’s servitude. More people would end up with a job they couldn’t quit. There would come a time when it was best to simply...destroy the roots. Destroy the Archives and leave nothing there to ensnare anyone back in. 

Full of paper and old wooden furniture, the archives go up like a light. Kerosine, C4 and a full box of matches only aid the flames amongst the seemingly endless hoard of fuel. After all, the statements went back over a hundred years. There were so many. There was so much knowledge and so much to be Known. But it was all good. Tapes melted into unusable chunks of plastic. Somewhere within the confines of prison, a man screams. His body is fine but his eyes are burning like hellfire. He can no longer See the institute but he knows what is happening. How could he not? He has lost. All of his planning is gone amongst fury and smoke. 

The fire spreads out of the archives and up into the empty reception area. The same reception area where Rosie would greet everyone with a pleasant smile, somehow making sure to Know the names of everyone working there. She was the first face all statement givers could give, offering a smile that was as much reassuring as it was a warning that something was very  _ wrong _ . Back home, Rosie would wake up in a cold sweat as the front desk became tinder. Her neat collection of office supplies and novelty pens would be burnt to nothing. All her tools for unknowingly gathering knowledge would be gone. A feeling of nausea filled her stomach as she went back to sleep. She would not learn its cause until she read a copy of the Metro the next morning. 

The library at the Magnus Institute was globally revered. It had one of the vested collections of books regarding the supernatural - including some dating back to the nineteenth century and earlier. It was a gold mine for book lovers and researchers alike. Not that it mattered much anymore. Not a single book was spared. The flames did not discriminate as they hoped from book to book, dancing along the remnants of knowledge that would be forever lost. Perfectly preserved antique books went up with just as much ease as a copy of a student’s dissertation. It all went up together. So many stories and facts and theories were lost. Their knowledge would never be indulged in again. No one would ever Behold their contents ever again.

Artefact storage had made everyone at the institute uneasy. Even those that didn’t believe in the supernatural knew that the room held danger. It was full of objects full of power that very few could ever truly explain. It was a room full of so much fear that you could practically taste it. It was draining, intoxicating, and had taken its toll on those that worked there. They had all slowly been feeding that which Watched over them and everything inside the room. When it went up in flames, it was violent. Each object practically screamed into the night as it was destroyed. The flames distorted in shape and colour as if fighting against the inevitable. It was a frenzied chaos. So much fear and terror burnt away in an instant. 

The last part of the building to burn was the office of the man with many names and just as many faces. The man that had given his name to the Institute. The man that had lived too many lifetimes in an attempt to serve his patron. A man forced to watch as everything he had worked towards fell apart. Very things within the office itself were noteworthy. Old trinkets and oddities from each of his lifetimes. One overturned photo and a pile of unsigned divorce papers in the top drawer of the desk. It was...precise. A reflection of the era it had been built in. The office had always held that last lingering piece of Victorian England; the one part of Jonah Magnus that would never truly change. A fact made even more certain by the portrait of the man that loomed over the desk. Though, he hadn’t looked like that in over a hundred years. The portrait burnt with everything else in the room. It burnt and shrivelled until one single part remained. The portrait’s eyes refused to burn. 

After that, the building itself began to fall apart. The foundation caved in on itself. Each wall crumbled and fell as the fire consumed all. Even below the building, the fire slithered into the tunnels. It burnt and twisted its way through until there was nothing left. The body of Jonah Magnus burnt with everything else. It was then that the man with the burning eyes dropped dead in his prison cell. They never found any cause of death - only that somehow, Elias Bouchard’s eyes had been burnt away into nothingness. The Ceaseless Watcher had finally forsaken him. 

Outside of the ruins of the Magnus Institute, there stands someone small and lithe with pure exhaustion strewn across their features. They look both lost and found. Their hand is held firmly in the grasp of a larger man that stands besides them. A blind woman is held in the arms of her lover. Neither is facing an inferno. Two women stand behind each other. One fiddles with the ends of her head scarf out of nervousness - her hijab becoming scattered with ashes. The other woman stares at the burning building with pure rage in their eyes. But all six are free. Those that were trapped there and those that loved them so were no longer bound to the Magnus Institute. No one was. No one ever would be again. 

Somewhere within the rubble, a lone tape recorder finally switched off. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated or hmu @ desert-lily on tumblr!


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